Ouroboros
by Lady Starscream
Summary: Just a sort of "what if" thing. The Ark was buried in a (sometimes) active volcano for four million years and survived. So what if another ship that crashed after it and was submerged (and of more advanced (Maximal) technology, from Cybertron's future) also survived? Started out as an anwer to the "how the Marauders got their own ship question, and turned into much more.


I kept wondering to myself "How could the Kinta'ari get back and forth to and from Cybertron, when the only Autobot ship(s) to crash or land were the one Hammertyread arrived on, which was blown up later, and the Lightracer, which the Defenders showed up on, which crashed on an Australian beach (and was more than likely salvaged by Klutch and company). Sooooo, where would another ship come from?  
Oh, I also forgot, the Vertigo, which Klutch arrived on, but I'm pretty sure Ribar nabbed that one, too.)  
So, another ship?

Then it hit me. Like a bolt of lightning.

And this happened.

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Somewhere in Africa...

The jet circled lazily over the dry barren landscape, which seemed to dance under the heat of the summer sun. Finally, she landed, checked her scanner, and looked around, sighing. "So much land, so little..." she looked at her scanner again "information."

She looked up at the large black jet circling overhead, and the smaller grey jet that whizzed past going toward her left. She walked a few paces, looked around, then squinted against the sun. Suddenly, a small mountain range focused itself, and the jet grinned. "looks like we're on the right track, guys."

Her comm came on and a rather whiny voice sounded. "So what are we looking for, again?"

"I didn't say. Not just yet." Jade replied.

"I'd rather be at home in the nice cool base playing videogames!" and the comm clicked off.

Jade rolled her optics, then clicked her comm to include everyone in their little "search party".

"I know we're on the right track." she took off and flew toward the mountain, which was rather flat but rounded , as though someone had taken a cannon to it millions of years prior to this and blasted it, then someone else had some along with a giant sander and sanded down the edges. She landed again, grinned, and held up her sketch. A rather crude sketch, but seeing as how certain bits of information tended to erase themselves when going from her universe to this one, it was the best she could do.

She jogged to the left to get a different angle, grinned again, and pulled out her datapad, doing a few quick calculations.

"Okay guys, we're getting close. Just a few miles more."

It had been easy, really. A few calculations, small details she had noticed that stuck out. And she finally stopped in front of a small valley. To one side, the land rose straight up, almost like a mountain ridge. She looked around. A few trees and some rocks dotted the landscape. A couple bushes rustled in a gust of wind off to one side.

Jade blinked her optics off, then back on, a look of absolute amazement crossed her features. "I found it." she said, almost to herself.

There was a whoosh, and the two fliers, Beacon and Gunlock, landed.

Jade walked along the edge of the valley, still in the shadow of that giant wall of stone.

"This was once a riverbed." she said, "Millions of years ago." she smiled, knowing *somehow* it was right. A little yellow car and a slightly larger white car zoomed down into the valley, kicking up dust trails. Jade jogged down to meet them, the two fliers following. Jade added "Actually, I think it was more of a lake. But still."

she pulled out her scanner. It beeped. She looked down at her feet. About that time, the rest of the group, a tank and a chevy Blazer, pulled up. The tank-mech transformed. "We got the equipment you wanted." Jade nodded. "Time to start digging."

Meanwhile, high above them, a rather large bat circled the area. Terra had come along, and had volunteered to keep an optic out for any visitors. She swooped down then back up on an updraft, taking in the sights and sounds of the animals a few miles away at a small water hole.

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Several hours later, all seven mechs were in a very large hole. "I thought you said it was down here." Cable, the yellow car, who had complained earlier, folded his arms.

"Yeah, and this used to be a lake. Which means it could have been a mile deep." Jade blasted away another bit of dirt. She paused and held up her scanner. The red dot on it was blinking brighter. "And whatever is down here, the signal's getting stronger."

About that time, Cap (the tank-mech) kicked at a rock.

CLANG!

"What was that!?" Cable hurried over to get a look. It was metal, ragged, and sticking out of the ground. "Huh. It's metal." he grabbed it and pulled.

It didn't budge.

So the little yellow mech braced his feet against the ground, leaned away from it and PULLED.

The metal whatever it was snapped off, sending the minispy flying and the metal flew straight up n the air, landing with a dull "thud".

The rest of the group gathered around it. It was a little bigger than both hands put together flat, and a gunmetal grey color.

Jade picked it up and stared, then looked up at the sky, as though seeing something that was no longer there. After a silent moment of silent awe, she spoke. "I told you it was here. it has to be here, somewhere."

After another few hours (five, to be exact), the group stood around what appeared to be the back end of a ship, still covered in dirt and filth. But it was bigger than a small shuttle-ship.

Cable gave Jade an expectant look. "Okay, so what is it, and where did it come from?"

Jade grinned and jogged in a circle around it.

Driveby, who was the white car, answered for her. "It appears to be some sort of spaceship. But why was it here? and how did it get buried?" Beacon chimed in with

"She did say this was a lake millions of years ago. Maybe it crashed into the lake." that was shortly folowed by

"What?" from Cable

"that the dumbest theory yet." from Gunlock, and

"Yeah, the dinosaurs had spaceships! Ha ha ha!" from Cap, who laughed and walked up to where the front had been torn away.

Jade rounded the other side and answered "You're all right. Well, all except for Cap. Sorry dude." she stepped into one of the compartments, which looked like it had once been a storage bay.

"It is a spaceship, and it did arrive here millions of years ago." she shook her head "You're not going to believe this, but I have a little story to tell you."

She looked at the ship again. "But I think I'm going to wait." A large shadow passed overhead, and she waved. "Let's just get this thing back to base. I'll tell you on the way." Skyfire turned and headed back toward them. Terra flew in and landed. "Wow. so that's what you were after." she looked at the ship. "It looks old."

Jade nodded. "it is."

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Some time later...

So, let me get this straight," Cap wiped the grease off his hands and walked out of the hangar cave of their mountainbase. "That thing crashed to the earth, was blown off a cliff, submerged in a a lake for Primus-only-knows how many millions of years, and you think we can still repair it?"

Jade shrugged "I was really only after the engines and the drive stuff, but if there's some way we can salvage it to make a working planet-hopper, it would be really good for us." her focus shifted to the ruined ship.

"We would have our own transportation. Besides, the Ark was buried in a *volcano* for four million years." her gaze went back to Cap "I'm assuming something from a civilization way more advanced than the Autobots, or should I say, descended from the Autobots, would probably hold up as well."

There was an explosive sound, and a dust cloud shot out of one of the engine exhaust ports, followed by the sound of some kind of engine or machinery whirring to life.

"AHA!" came a triumphant crow.

Gunlock rounded the back of the ship. "You wouldn't believe the technology in this thing..."

he stopped abruptly realizing his enthusiasm was showing, and cleared the static from his vocaliser. "I mean, I think we may have gotten something working, sir." He turned on his heel and disappeared behind the ship again.

Jade looked stunned for a moment, then jogged over to where the front part of the ship had been ripped away.

Sweeping aside a bit of hanging wires and debris, she stepped into the storage bay.

She wandered to one side, and looked at a couple of crates, tilting her head to one side. "How many kinds of fun could one have with a salvaged Maximal ship, I wonder." she said to nobody in particular. She started unstacking the crates, and discovered a door behind it.

the metal was badly dented inward, welded shut permanently with rust. "I wonder what is behind door number one." she went and got a cutting torch and went to work.

The entire frame of the door was cut away by the time the others had finished their assigned jobs and decided to explore the ship. Jade had given them all instructions to be careful, watch for weak spots, and so on and so forth.

Jade hauled back and kicked it with all her might, sending it crashing to the floor of the next room.

Suddenly, there was a startled cry from above, and she rushed out and flew up to the top level to see why cable had screamed like a frightened sparklet-femme.

Beacon was laughing his wings off, holding a pair of what looked like giant insect legs. Cable glared vehemently at the flier. "Don't do that!"

Jade blinked.

Beacon held them up. "what are they?"

she looked at the disembodied legs, then behind him. He turned as she approached and he went inside what looked like a small storage area.

"They're everywhere. look." Beacon held up a pair of insect wings, perfectly clear, with iridescent lines throughout them. Jade huffed amusedly. The little grey flier looked confused. "They look like they came from one of the Insecticons. But none of the Insecticons *we* know of transform into bees." he pointed to one yellow and black piece of armor.

Jade just folded her arms listening to Beacon and Cable chattering away happily. She was so very amused, and happy that they had found this ship. And if everything worked out, they would possibly be able to use the engines and actually travel back and forth to Cybertron...

OH NO! CYBERTRON!

the image struck a chord somewhere triggering a memory. One of just how exactly this ship had arrived here on earth so many millions of years ago.

The engines.

Jade started and headed straight for the main engine room.

On the way she realized there were now other possible hazards. What if one of the crew members of this ship had brought history files along with them?

What if one of the Marauders found those history files?

Jade suddenly remembered that one of the crew members on this ship had been an avid fan of history, and would likely have had such documents.

She had to find the personnel quarters and go through them before somebody would something that could irreparably alter and obviously damage the timeline.

Right after she found and disabled the transwarp drive.

"Scrap! Scrap! Scrappity scrappity scrap!"

She jogged into the main area, finding it empty, thank goodness. "Okay, one thing at a time."

She clicked on her comm "Hey guys," she waited for them to stop whatever they were doing. "I know you're having fun exploring the ship and everything, but I need you to stop for a little bit. There's no telling how structurally sound this thing is." She gave the ceiling a glance "and..." she hurriedly tried to come up with any other excuse that would get them to leave the ship alone.

"And there could be booby traps or something. We don't know the exact conditions this ship was left in, and you could trigger something really nasty. okay?"  
There was a series of moans and mild protesting, but that was soon followed with a series of affirmatives.

Cable inserted "fine, but I'm keeping these cyber-bee parts. No telling what I might be able to make with them."

"Fine, go ahead." that slipped out before Jade realized what she'd just said. then she shrugged it off. She doubted Cable could really get anything useful from it. Then again, there were quite a few pieces of Waspinator in there.

She had to chuckle at the thought of having a remote-controlled Waspinator running around. Of course it would never be alive, because Waspinator's spark had... erm...well... he was on Earth when the Beast Wars ended, so it probably went to the well of the allsparks. If he wasn't buried alive out there in the African/Arabian desert somewhere...

Jade mentally smacked herself for getting off track and imaginative.

Now, back to finding that transwarp drive...

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END NOTES

oh help. I'm having way more trouble than I thought I ever would with this. *mad cackling*. And fun.

I did consult google on the location of the Beast Wars. I kinda figured it was Northern Africa, seeing as how most of the BW charas are African animals. Except, according to the net, the T-Rex, Pteranodon (I get it and the Pterodactyl mixed up for some reason), and the Velociraptor. And scientists believe the earliest humans lived in Africa. Online references seem to agree.

The mountain with a peice taken out of it is the mountain Beast Wars Megatron shot (using the golden disk as reference) shortly before attacking the proto-humans.

Also, if you really think about it, this could happen in G1. The Axalon actually crashed some time after the Ark did. And the Ark sat in a (live!) volcano for four million years! If the Ark can stay intact, so can (the back half of) the Axalon.

The Axalon was ripped in half by the Predacons, in case you're not familiar with Beast wars. When the Maximals found the Ark, they salved parts of the front of the ship (the bridge) and the main computer to create a security system to protect the Ark from the Predacons.

Jade knows the beast wars. She also knows G1. Difference is, there are more people (in her G1) than there are supposed to be. Those people are effecting the timeline. Without someone (Jade) there to keep it straight, they can alter the future. And that would be disatrous. But that's another story for another time.

This started out as a simple plotline for a oneshot. It was supposed to be a general overview-type-story about "how the Kinta'ari got their own ship." then I started writing it and all the implications of just what this ship *could hold* hit me. It was too good to pass up.

and no, Waspinator's not coming back to life. sorry.  
Anyone want to guess at what's in the room off the storage bay? No, really. I don't know what to make it. Suggestions?


End file.
